How to Become the Most Confident Version of Yourself & Step Into Your Power

Hey, I'm going to answer a question that I get asked from listeners of the Mel Robbins podcast around the world.

I get this question almost every day, and this is the question. Mel, who do you listen to? When life gets tired, when the world seems overwhelming, when you feel discouraged or beaten up by life, who do you listen to, Mel?

“Who's the voice that gives you hope that opens your mind and your heart?”

Who's the person that you can listen to all day long? You know, someone who just makes you feel like everything's going to be okay. That you have the power to meet the challenges of your life and not be defeated or defined by it. But to emerge stronger, wiser, better. And that one person that I, Mel Robbins turn to is best-selling author and pastor Sarah Jakes Roberts.

So today, I'm going to share the conversation with you that I had with her. It's one of those episodes that we've recorded on the Mel Robbins podcast that I personally turn to over and over again. And I also continue to share it with anyone in my life who needs hope, motivation, optimism, and the reminder that, yes, change is possible.

You are so much more powerful than you know, and today, Sarah Jakes Roberts will convince you of that.

And in particular, if you are someone you love, is tired of beating yourself up about the past,

“or you're feeling like your life is just never going to get going in the right direction?”

I'm going to tell you something. You're listening to the exact podcast that you needed today. So if you're ready to stop beating yourself up and drag in the past around, and you want to start becoming who you're meant to be, Sarah Jakes Roberts is ready to teach you how. Hey, it's your friend Mel, and welcome to the Mel Robbins podcast.

I am so excited that you're here. It's such an honor to be together and to spend this time with you. And if you're a new listener, or you're here because someone shared this extraordinary episode with you, I just want to take a moment and personally welcome you to the Mel Robbins podcast family. Today, you're going to learn how to create a brand new version of yourself with best-selling author and pastor, Sarah Jakes Roberts.

She is one of the most powerful and inspiring voices alive today on healing, self-forgiveness, and reinvention.

Sarah is a New York Times best-selling author, a speaker, a philanthropist, an entrepreneur, and a teacher who has a rare gift. She can take the messiest parts of being human. Shame, regret, the mistakes you keep playing, the past you count out run, and she can help you. Turn these experiences into wisdom and strength that propels you forward and empowers you to create a big, beautiful future. So let's jump in to the moment when Sarah Jakes Roberts first walked in to our Boston studios.

Sarah Jakes Roberts, I'm so excited to get to spend some time with you. Thank you, I'm looking forward to it. So I would love to have you start by talking directly to the person who's listening and share with them what they can expect to experience and learn from you today.

“Like, how might their life change if they take everything that you're about to share to heart?”

Hmm. I would say today you are going to learn to rest in the truth of who you are, not just your hopes and dreams, the achievements and shiny things, but the things that have been hard and challenging. Today you're going to find a way to rest in that embrace it, accept it, and then allow it to propel you into a big, beautiful future. Oh, yeah, I'm ready. Yeah, I would like that. Let's go. Let's go. And in order to go forward, I think oftentimes in life you gotta look back. Yeah. And one of the things that I love the most about you,

there's so many things that I love about you. But I love that whenever I watch you online or I tune into a sermon or I read something that you've written, I feel as though I have somebody walking by my side, not somebody speaking down from above. Yeah. And you have a story in terms of your past that I think a lot of people don't realize. And I would love for us to go back in time

learned from those periods in your life. So can you take us back to this moment in time? You are the daughter of a well-known mega church pastor and something happens in your personal life.

“Yes, I got pregnant at 13 years old. I had my son at 14 years old, which I think is a staggering”

sentence no matter whose child you are. But the added complexity of my father being a prominent leader in faith. I think further intensified the sense of shame, the sense of guilt that I had to wait through for about 10 years. And I think also that was heightened by this fact that like though I

have this family that is huge in the faith world, I never really felt like like one of the good

girls, one of the God girls, one of the church girls. And so in many ways it felt like this pregnancy just confirmed a pre-existing insecurity that for some reason I didn't fit. And so my pregnancy is when I accepted like okay this is not for me. I'm going to figure life out on my own and I'm going to let all the good church people do what good church people do and I'm just going to figure everything else out. Well God had different plans I think. You know when I think about the age 13

and 14, how did you even process something like that as such a young girl? I didn't. I thought

“the worst thing that was going to happen was like I'm going to get in trouble. Like I'm going”

to be grounded and we didn't even have cell phones at the time like oh my gosh we're going to take the antenna out of the TV and take the phone court out of the wall. Like this is going to be punishment. It wasn't until I saw their reaction that I began to realize that this is bigger than just your in trouble. This is a life altering experience that has created grief in our family. And I think that seeing their grief, seeing them struggle with what it means to have a child that's having a child,

made me realize that whatever just took place here has changed my life forever. And it's interesting that you in reflecting back can say my immediate reaction was one of going oh well

there are those kind of people over there that are the godly church people. I'm always going to be over

here. What was that journey like over those 10 years where you were wrestling with that natural instinct that we all have that we separate? We don't see ourselves as connected to other people. We push back against the love that's coming at us or the support that's coming out. How did you even move through that? So I started off comparison so I'm not like them so let me figure out who I am like. And so I would say you know what? I kind of feel like I'm close to

this kind of girl so I'll be that kind of girl. And then I got with those kind of girls. I'm like I don't exactly fit here. So let me go here. And I thought maybe achievement, maybe success, maybe relationships, I can be like whoever this other girl is supposed to be. And then I will

“try and find myself. And I think as long as I was trying to be like some other version of someone”

that I never had an opportunity to figure out who I was. And so for 10 years I was trying

on like Cinderella trying on different shoes. Like I was just trying going shoe after shoe after shoe until I said you know what? I'm going to be barefoot. I don't need shoes. You know, I'm a country girl from West Virginia. I'm going to be barefoot. I'm going to stand flat-footed in the truth of who I am. I'm going to stand flat-footed in this maybe it is isolation. Maybe it is loneliness. Maybe I don't fit anywhere. Maybe I just spit within myself. And from that space,

I said you know what? I've tried literally everything. I have waitress added strip club. I've tried these toxic relationships. I've gone to school. I've worked for the government. I tried everything. I said you know what? I'm going to try faith. I'm going to try and figure out if this God who they talk about who loves you no matter what. Like I'm going to see if maybe possibly it works for someone like me. And I think from there this really intimate relationship with God

allowed me to encounter healing and love and restoration. And I thought that it would just be between me and God, that it would make no sense to anyone else, but it finally made sense to me. You said something that struck me that maybe I could just fit within myself. Yeah. What does that mean? Maybe I can just embrace myself instead of seeking a sense of belonging, a sense of okayness from other people. If I could find a way to be okay with myself, then I can wrap my arms

around who I am. And for me, I had to sit with myself until I no longer cringed. I had to sit

where I once felt guilt. And from that place of compassion, I learned to love who I am. And my

“guess this is my story and know it may not be perfect, but I'm going to stick beside me.”

Every single one of us has stuff that we've done in the past, things that we have done to ourselves or other people, mistakes that we think that we've made, how do you begin the process of sitting with yourself? How do you learn how to forgive yourself? It starts with intention. I will say those ten years, I was sitting with myself, but I was sitting with myself punishing myself. How could you be so stupid? You made the biggest mistake. No one's ever going to want to. Sometimes we

are sitting with ourselves, but how we are sitting with ourselves is why we can't heal. You can't want to heal and punish yourself at the same time to repeat the words that other people have spoken over you that we're negative. Having it replaying your mind over and over again while you sit

with yourself will never bring you to a place of healing. Sitting with yourself with the pursuit of

compassion, with the pursuit of love and acceptance, that is when we start sitting with ourselves and experience some discomfort and some dysregulation because sitting with myself and trying to be compassionate requires me to stretch to love myself in a way that I don't think it's possible. And as long as you don't think it's possible to sit with yourself and love yourself, every facet of who you are, it doesn't matter who you love, it doesn't matter what you achieve, until you can really sit with

yourself and none of those things are going to make you feel better either. But it is the greatest absolute greatest gift that you can give yourself to allow love to flood the place where you want self in emptiness. I just want to make sure that as you're taken your walk or you're washing your dishes or you are driving in your car that you caught the actual magic that just came through the

speakers or the headphones. I have never heard anybody say something as profound as you just said,

you cannot heal while you are still punishing yourself. Oh yeah, and we don't do ourselves any favors by committing to punishing ourselves over and over again for what we did for what we allowed to happen. This is what we say though, we say to ourselves, I'm going to keep this from happening again by constantly living with it right in front of me. And if I can live with it right in front of me, if I can beat myself up, if I can punish myself, then I will keep this from happening again.

“I will prepare myself for further rejection from other people. If I constantly remember how”

unworthy I am, how little value I possess. And so in many ways, we think this is me protecting myself by constantly keeping it in front of my face, but if we're honest, we do long for an existence where

we want to believe that I am not just this one moment, but we will never be more than that one moment

if we constantly replay that moment in our head. And so to invite into our atmosphere, whatever moments do I want to have, what other things do I want to define me? I spend so long not wanting to be defined as a teen mom instead of saying, I will be defined as being a teen mom, but also I'm going to be an incredible person, but also I'm going to love myself, but also I'm going to dream and I'm going to be an author and a teen mom. I'm not trying

to disconnect from who I was. I'm trying to bring all of who I am into the fullness of where I am. Sarah Jakes Roberts just gave you a gift, but also, but also, but also, I'm this and that. I am all of these things and I thought that because I was this one thing, I had no permission to be anything

“else. So yeah, the truth is, yeah, I'm a teen mom. Yes, I've gone through divorce. I've got a laundry”

list of things that I never wanted to be that I've had to step boldly in and in addition to that, I'm on the Mel Robbins podcast. And in addition to that, you know what I mean? Millions of people who to do you every day. All right, all of these things are true. All of these things are true. And I don't want to be all of my achievements, gosh, can you imagine what that would be? The pressure and the arrogance connected to that. I want to be this beautiful mixture, this beautiful tapestry

of a girl-owned and journey and a woman owning her power. And I can live in all of that. I can do all of that. A girl on her journey and a woman owning her power. Somebody needs to write

through you? Like, I don't even feel like it's a conversation. I feel this energy and this truth that comes through you. Like, it just gets me so choked up to be in the presence of somebody that

“has such a gift. It's, um, I believe that I'm annoying to it for this. I believe that anything”

that I've done in the art that's not a reflection of my skills or my talents or something you pick

up in a book. And that I have this incredible opportunity to reflect God's glory everywhere I go.

And if I can get past my nerves, if I can give past my insecurity, if I can get past my second guessing and rest in that truth, there is a flow that just happens. And it doesn't just happen like in this, like I'm in this flow when I'm raising my children. They're opening up to me and I'm like, God, you know, don't let me be worried. Don't let me overreact. You know what I mean? Let me reflect your glory in their vulnerability. Let me reflect your glory when I go into this meeting.

I, I really do want to be a light in this world. And after experiencing as much darkness as I have gone through to offer just a flicker to another person. Like, maybe I can't be this big brilliant light for everyone. But if today in this moment you're listening and I get to be a flicker on your journey, just know that there are other flames connected that are going to be this inferno

“of who you're going to be. But we got to gather every flicker, right? Yeah. And I think that's the”

part of life that many of us misses, that we're waiting for these big moments that are going to shine a huge light on us. And when I have that huge light, then I'm going to feel better. I'm going

to be confident, I'm going to be powerful. But I am beginning to believe that it's all about as

gathering those little moments, those little like Christmas light size moments where things are just a little bit better. And then we look up and things have become brilliant. You know, millions of people do tune in to your every word and having watched and listened to your sermons and experienced what a force you are. I'm curious to hear your thoughts on what you believe most of us need to hear and be reminded of. Most people underestimate how necessary their existence is in the world.

And as a result, assume a posture of resignation that leaves the world less than what it could be. Our lives are not random. They are not coincidences. There is nothing more special about me than there is about you. We were all given these lives to make the world better. And I feel like most people underestimate how necessary they are. And as a result, they don't take their healing seriously. They don't take their thoughts seriously. We put ourselves on discount and give ourselves

away to like the lowest bidder because we have these aches inside of us. But if we truly ever tapped into the high value of our breath, it would change what we speak, it would change what we think, it would change how we show up in the world. And it would quite literally make the world a better place. Like if you can just make your world, your friends, your family, your sisters, your co-workers, if you can take seriously the impact you have in your corner of the world. And then I take

seriously the impact that I have with my influence and my corner of the world. Those incremental commitments are how we begin to change the narrative of what it means to be human surviving together.

“That's beautiful. And I think you're right. I do too. I get struck by the number of people”

that write in every single day that are seeking purpose. And I think to myself, will your purpose is to heal and to share yourself and to make yourself better. And then make everybody that comes in contact with you, feel a little better to spread the light that you're talking about. But it

starts with you. You said something that just holy cow, I'd never heard this. It's this concept of

discounting yourself to the lowest bidder. Can you explain that? Yeah. So when I look at the 10 years of my life where I struggle. Yeah. First of all, I grew up in church. Yep. During the height of purity culture. Okay. So the highest prize was to be this like untouched virgin when you

over and over again. Just like girl don't do it. Okay. Why I did it. I was like, you guys, I can do it.

I did it. Okay. And so I'm like, all right. We're going to knock that price down a little bit to put a little sticker over my worth in my value. And then I'm like, well, hey, the price is already

“low. You might as well try some other things. And so I think little by little, I fail for this”

idea that if I cannot live up to someone else's definition of a woman, someone else's definition of a believer, someone else's definition, then I have to discredit. I have to discount who I am. And the only problem with that is when you begin to see yourself as less valuable, you also accept things that you would not otherwise accept if you felt like you had value. If I were smart enough, if I were thin enough, if I were beautiful enough, then maybe I wouldn't have to do this. But since

I don't have these things, I have to accept that. And that is a lie. Your value is not set by these experiences you have gone through. They are not set by society standard. I don't care what they call

beautiful. I don't care what they call powerful. Your value is an inside job. It is a commitment that

“says, you know what? The truth of who I am, my ability to survive all that I've gone through,”

the way that I have seen the world has added to my value, not decreased it. And that is some big valuable belief that not many of us are able to tap into. But if we can just try by faith to say, you know what? What if that didn't change anything? I work with women quite a bit. And while my issue was teen pregnancy and having to recover from that, I know enough about what women have gone through to know that whether their parents went divorced, they got divorced, molestation. Like

they have all of these experiences that they think in some way has made them different than the

person they're sitting next to. And because I am not as valuable, then I have to do things that

they don't have to do. What I have learned is that everyone has had some type of experience that has challenged them in their belief of their value. And because we've all had these types of experiences, maybe we aren't any less valuable as a result of the experiences, maybe instead we're more valuable because the wisdom and resiliency connected with having to face these things have made us more confident, more courageous and how we can show up in the world. There's a conversion that

has to take place. But once that conversion happens, there's a relentlessness that is attached to it as well. For the person listening who is nodding along and the way you just framed this idea that if you take any mistake that you make and then you discount yourself and you start to tell yourself the story over and over again that you're not valuable, which then makes you accept behaviors in your life or makes you discount your own value. And you said, you know, actually no, there's a flip here

like all those experiences actually create wisdom. They make you human and it's what you do with those things that matters. And you have control over that and most people are sitting there talking about what happened instead of flipping it into something that they can use to make something extraordinary happen. You have this concept about life giving you leftovers and how you make a meal out of it. Can you share that with us? Because I have a feeling that that's sort of a tool we can

use to help us look at the things that we keep baiting ourselves up over. Okay, so if I go back

“so when I was pregnant and mind you as 14 years old, so I thought that the only way I could recover”

from my pregnancy was to create a new life, a new existence. And so my goal was to do something completely new. I'm going to be an accountant. I'm going to be a CFL. I am going to put something on top of this teen pregnancy. That's going to make things better. And I think that the reason why I know that the reason why I failed over and over again and trying to create something new is that I wasn't using what I had left over. Instead of saying, okay, this is what's in my cabinet.

I'm a teen mom. I'm a smart girl. I have a writing gift. I kept trying to reinvent who I was. And you can't reinvent who you are using ingredients that don't exist. You got to use all of being ingredients. So, yes, I have all of these gifts and talents, but I also have a child. I'm still struggling with, you know, my insecurities. I've gone through this divorce. I have to take all of this in order to create something that is really going to be authentic to who I am,

because what I don't want to do is reinvent a version of myself that requires me to pretend

to really accept the truth of who you are, you don't allow it to be snatched easily out of your hands. And because it's not snatched easily out of your hands, whatever you build with those things aren't snatched either. When I started blogging, because this is how all of this became a thing where I had like a following. I started, so just to put it in a timeline, are you like in your

“early 20? I think it's early 20. I opened up the cupboard. I love that visual, because I think most”

of us, when we say, let's just look at what you got. Let's just take the wrong green. Let's take all, like for me, it's like being molested. It's all the cheating that I did. It's the anxiety that I struggled with. It's the what a bitch I used to be. It is all of, like just all of this. I was like, you know, Sarah, when I opened up that cupboard, I'm like, you know, I just go, I just go, I'm just going, - What's your shop? - I don't know if you're shopping.

- I don't know if you're shopping. - I don't know if you're shopping. - Exactly. - You're gonna know if you're gonna go shopping. - Let's do something with her.

- Let's paint the cover. - Yeah, let's tell it first.

- Let's do something with her. - Let's do something with her. - We're here, but it makes so much sense. - Yeah. - Because until you get comfortable with the ingredients that you have and you see it as something to use.

- Yeah. - Not to be ashamed of. - Yeah. - Not to hide because the stuff that you hide and people and the world then has power over. - For sure. - For sure.

- But the second that you open up the cupboard and you are willing to look at what you're working with. - Yeah. - Now you have power. - Yeah. - I love it.

“- That to me is like the greatest message”

that any of us need to understand is that like us closing the cabinet means that I have to live in existence that pretend that I don't have what I have. And that is stressful and that is an authentic.

And then we start people pleasing because if I'm not going to embrace who I am then I'll just be whoever you need me to be. But when you say you know what, this is who I am and you're gonna have to meet me.

You're gonna have to meet me here. I'm still growing. I'm still talented, but this is what I have to offer. This is what I bring to the table. And I have found value in it.

I can show you the value that I have found in it. But until I see this value, well, I can't expect anyone else to see it. So yeah, in my early 20s, I'm like, okay, I'm gonna start blogging. I was in a toxic relationship.

And I'm just like, I don't know how I got here.

“So writing for me is how I processed my thoughts.”

And I'm dumping it onto the internet not thinking it's gonna mean anything. Then people start connecting to this blog and now they're being inspired and I'm like, oh, Lord. Oh.

I didn't know if I'd come out inspired by me. And so I was like, you know what? I'm gonna slow this train down by telling them, like, I got pregnant at 13 years old. Like, I'm going through a divorce.

I dropped out of college. I am not your inspiration. And then I still was, they were like, oh, my gosh, me too. Oh, my gosh, I'm no longer alone in this.

I didn't know that someone else felt this way. And now all of a sudden, those things that I thought disqualified me,

those things that I thought I could never use

are the things that people actually had to taste for. Hmm, this authenticity, this truth, this uncertainty and this willingness to own it, there was an appetite for that. That at the time, it felt like very few people

were willing to say, this is who I am. This is what I've gone through. And that appetite wasn't just for you to say, this is who I am, but also, I really wish that I could also be this.

And so in my early 20s, I started this journey of like, this is where I am. This is what I hope to be true. I'm gonna live like it's true. And these women who have been on this journey

with me have seen my life evolve literally as a result of us saying, like, hey, maybe we are the missed bits, maybe we aren't the ones that anyone won't want it, but girl, I'll claim you. (laughs)

But first, you got to claim you covered. - First of all, you got to claim you covered. - That's such a phenomenal metaphor. - Yeah. - Because all the people pleasing results

and you not wanting people to see what's in there. - For sure. - And until you learn how to go into those places where you're punishing yourself.

- Yeah. - And you said, when we first started talking, allowing the love and compassion and acceptance to flow into those places that have been really dark. Well, they've been dark

'cause the cabinet doors are closed. - Yeah, yeah, for sure. And I mean, it's really liberating. It sounds scary. I can feel the fear that you're probably experiencing

right now at the very idea of going into that space that maybe your mom didn't have the courage

to go in, your father never talked about

It's how our families, paradigms,

have shaped the way we see ourselves and the way we see what we're working with. And I am just here to let you know, this is what I love about the book that I wrote is that I am not going to make you

drastically change your life overnight.

“Just between you and you, can you open that cupboard?”

Just between you and you, can you say, this is all that I'm working with. And some of this real spicy and some of this bland and some of it's bitter and some of it's very, very sweet. Just if you could create intimacy within yourself

or you say, this is all of who I am, if you can hear your own story, that's the beginning. If you can hear it and not cringe, if you can hear it and accept it, that's the beginning and from that space,

you whisper it to another person.

There's a friend who's going through something and because you've gone through your cup of juice, hey, I got some of that too. I just want you to know that that doesn't have to be the end and from community and connection,

we begin to spread our story. And that spreading is why I'm here and that spreading is the light that we get to offer to the world. It's our testimony.

Which again, going back to the cupboard, it's dark when it's closed. So opening it up is the beginning of that little Christmas light that you're talking about that starts to sparkle and that we spread and every time you open your mouth

and you tell your story, that makes the light a little bit bigger.

And you were saying that we make a mistake

in waiting for these big bonfires in life. When every single day there's the opportunity to open the cupboard door and open your mouth and tell your story and that's where the light and the magic is. - Pretty sure.

- For somebody who's in the place, where, 'cause for a long time, when I started looking, I guess I used to say back, but since until you actually sit with what's in your cupboard. (laughing)

- It's in the presence right here, it's right here, it's the living yard. - Well, that's the other thing is that we talk a lot about regret, but because you won't sit with it. - Yeah.

- It's actually not in the past. - No. - And so for someone who is entertaining that liberating and courageous moment of even faith in yourself to face it, right?

And you do cringe. Like I, there are some things that the Mel Robbins when I was Mel Schneeberger, (laughing) there's stuff that I don't know that I still cringe, but I'm like, oh God woman, you know what,

and I have compassion, so I should say. - But for somebody that hasn't ever sat with it and the cringe is there and you want to turn from it, do you have any tools or advice for how to sit through the cringe

and what is actually coming when you allow all

“of that grief and that judgment to rise up inside you?”

- I love that to use the word "Gree." I'm an analogy girl if you have it. - Oh God, well that's brilliant. - Okay, so here we go. So I think that part of the reason

while we feel regret, when we look at those moments in our lives that make us cringe, is because we are constantly turning on a movie right in the middle and looking at one particular scene of our life over and over again

and judging our life based on that scene. If you are in a moment right now where you're flirting with the idea of learning to sit with yourself and experience compassion for what you've gone through,

I would dare you to look at your whole movie and totality. When I thought about the idea in the beginning, bringing to the 13, I would cringe like girl, like how could you over and over again. Now when I think about it,

I feel sorry for who I was at 13. Not sorry, like because of who I am, but I feel compassion. I feel her lossness. I feel her isolation.

I feel her loneliness. I feel her anger. I understand why I made that choice. I know what I was looking for. I know what I didn't have

because I sat with myself. And when you're in a family like my parents have their lives exploded overnight, people talk about like mega churches, mega pastors, like no one sets out for it to be mega.

People keep coming in the sight. (laughing)

“I guess we need a bigger building, you know what I mean?”

And so you make these big buildings and I guess we're supposed to do stuff in the communities and like you respond to the need. And while they were so busy dealing with whatever it meant to be threatened to spotlight,

They thought we were okay, but we were lost in a sea of people.

And overnight, our lives went from having this family church where we knew everyone to all of a sudden, people sending death threats and we need security. And we weren't okay. No one was helping us process what was happening.

They couldn't process it. And so I was lonely. I was angry. I didn't fit.

“So when I think about who I was when I got pregnant,”

if I just look at me rubbing my belly at 13, I could say, oh, so cringy. I could say, man, that girl was really heartbroken. That girl really needed someone who could see her. That girl really needed someone who would tell her

where she fit in this world. Or to take her out of that world and to help dive into her own world. I didn't have those things. And as a result of that, I tried this self-smooth.

And I made some choices that I wish I could have done differently. Mainly for the sake of my son that happened to grow up with me at the same time I was growing up. But I don't feel bad about that anymore because I see the whole movie.

And so if you're watching this or listening to it, I want you to know that you do not have to look at your life one scene at a time, that the greatest gift you can give yourself is to look at it from the opening credits to where you are now.

And understand that anyone who had what you had in the cabinet would have probably made the same choice. They would have likely ended up addicted to. Maybe they would have been heartbroken as well. Maybe they would have been from whatever your thing is

that makes you cringe. If you look at the whole movie, given what you had to work with, I want you to know that you did the best that you could. It is so true.

And there is so much more that I want to dig into with you,

“but I think this is a really good time to take a quick pause.”

And just allow all of this profound wisdom to seep into. And while you're listening to our sponsors, I want you to take a minute and please share this with somebody that you love. This conversation is a gift.

And Sarah and I are gonna be waiting for you. And after this short break, stay with us. Welcome back. It's your friend Mel Robbins. I am absolutely thrilled that you and I are together today

and that we get to spend time with the extraordinary Sarah Jake's Roberts. And now Sarah, you know where I wanna go next is this. As I listen to you over and over and over again just really to each word.

The thing that keeps coming up for me is this ability to look at the whole movie of your life. The fact that it's so easy to forget isn't it

that this is also your parents' first time being human beings?

Yeah, yeah. That they're doing the best that they can with what they had in the cupboard. Based on what your grandparents had in their cupboard. Hello, that doesn't mean that any of it is just,

I just mean like what they had. This is what they had. There is this level of kind of, my daughter has this term open arms. There's kind of open arms kind of people,

which is the physical version of an open heart. Yeah. And you have this ability to make us want to look at our own movie and story with an open heart and compassion for self.

How important is that loving understanding?

“I guess is how I would describe what compassion is?”

Yeah, for sure. I would, yeah, looking at your life through a lens of love

and not judgment is an incredible definition

of what it means to have compassion. And I think it's responsible to do that when you're gonna engage in relationship with other people because if you can't look at your life through the lens of love, but you can look at other people's

life through the lens of love and feel compassion for them, then you cannot even receive the love that you're pouring out into the world. Or worse, we are harsh with other people because we're harsh with ourselves.

Because I can't see my life through a lens of love, I'm definitely not gonna see yours. And if I went through this and you went through that, babe girl, grab them boo straps and that ain't nothing. Like now we're in the struggle of Olympics.

Like who's going to work through that it worse? You know what I mean? Or where jealous or where invious and like we just are not best people to be in relationship with when we haven't figured out what compassion looks like for our own journey.

And especially for doing the work of raising children, loving partners, there is an obligation I feel

and love isn't gonna come from pursuit.

It's gonna come from as digging a well within ourselves. And when we dig that well and we hit that spring of love, not just for ourselves, it overflows into how we care for other people. We were at Starbucks the other day and my daughter,

she's 14, she's not aware of anything except for herself. (both laughing) And she slings the door open and she hits the car of the person beside it and he's coming out of Starbucks at the same time and he doesn't.

He calls her like a dumb. He's called her something ignorant, crazy. And so I heard him say it. And I go now that wasn't kind. (both laughing)

And that response instead of matching his anger, like because I've been frustrated before someone's hit my door, they weren't paying attention. So like I'm not gonna act like, oh my gosh, how could you be frustrated that someone hit your car

and probably dinged your door? Yeah.

“But I think I caught him so off guard by not responding with fire.”

I was just like now that wasn't kind. And he felt conviction about how he was showing up in the world. But I think that when we are able to really master it literally changes all of the ways that we interact with people. Now that doesn't mean I won't customize it out though.

So like don't catch me. (both laughing) That was a good moment. I was full of love. I must have just been worshiping.

But like if you catch me on a low moment, you know, I'm gonna try I'm gonna do all the things. But what are all the things that you do in order to stay in a grounded place where you are present to that power and light inside you?

I have to rest. When I am not resting, I am running on fumes and when I'm running on fumes,

I don't always make the best choices.

I'm tired, I'm weary, I'm irritated. From the place of rest, even if for me it's just like spiritual rest, right? Letting my brain rest, gratitude, appreciation, prayer,

“meditation, really reflecting on my life.”

And I let the 13 year old girl who experienced shame, rejection, and loneliness take in where life is now. (sighs) Oh, yeah.

The grown woman version of me, grabbing this little girl's hand and saying, "Look girl, like look, you made it." Your son's 21 now and he loves you and he's an incredible human.

And oh my gosh, this man that you married, like look at how he talks about you. And you know, in my children and my life and like look what they're saying about you because she heard your nasty, she heard your slit,

she heard her, like she heard all of those things. And if I'm not careful, I won't allow her to hear what people are saying now. I won't allow her to experience the affirmation of God that exists in her life now.

And sometimes I'm so busy doing and checking the boxes and going through the calendar that I don't let her in for like this listening session where like look at this world.

“I think no matter where you are in your movie,”

the scene that you're in is still worthy of reaching backward and taking a younger version of yourself and just taking a moment and going, we made it this far. - Yeah.

- Like look at all this. - Yeah. - Oh my gosh, because this thing, this adulting thing, they keep moving the marker. (laughing)

They just keep moving it is like, "Chow, I just got here." (laughing) And now you're telling me that here doesn't exist. It's actually there and then I get there.

And that's not here either, you know? But where I am now was a place there. I once wanted to be and I think reconciliation is being able to say like, look at where we are now. Like okay, you have all these things you wanna do

and all these plans all that stuff like okay, maybe we get there maybe we don't. But right now if we didn't get any further than this man, if I did not get any further than this, if it was greedy for me when people were like,

what are you gonna do next, what's next, what are you gonna do next, that feels like greed 'cause I am in the overflow right now.

If I never write another book, this is the last podcast

I record and I disappear from people's brains and minds. What God has done in my life up until this point was not something I could have ever asked for. I didn't even know this was possible. I did not know that God saw this for me.

- Oh can I tell you story? - You can, you can, I am in a trance. You can tell me whatever the heck you wanna tell me. - It just gives me chills, I love it. But when I first got pregnant, yeah,

someone very close to me, looks at me and said, I always knew to expect something like this from you. And that made me question so much. I'm 13, but the 13 year old mine. And it just made me feel like there's really something

wrong with you. The Church of didn't make sense and now someone saying they knew to expect this from you. And I ate that for breakfast like for 10 years,

the dirty, the nasty, the all of that. Like I just ate that I believed it. And when my life started changing,

“I think I probably did experience imposter syndrome,”

which it was weird 'cause I told people who I was, but they were still there. And so now I'm just questioning myself. And I was at church, and I was just kind of like priming and worshiping, and I was about to go on tour.

And you know, man, I just be don't stuff. I'm just like, let's see what'll happen if we do a tour. And then the tour sells out on my old Lord's house. (laughing)

I'm usually prepared for things to fail, not for things to succeed. I'm like, oh, they come in the tour. And I'm praying, and I really just felt like

the presence of God saying, I always knew

to expect something like this from you. And sometimes I'm standing in moments, and I start to feel doubt, and I start to feel worry, and I start to wonder if I have what it takes to stand up in the moment, and I feel God say,

I always knew to expect something like this from you. And trusting what God knows, what God knew, what God saw. Even when I didn't see it myself, there's nothing else to be added to this. And I will not allow other people's idea

of who I could be to rob me of be assurance I have received from what God's always known about me. Like, I can't let you keep moving the marker, 'cause I already know, like, I won already. I won.

“Well, I think you win the moment you open the cabinet doors.”

Yeah. How would you frame the way that you're talking about your relationship with God to a person that's listening, that either has lost their faith, or doesn't believe in God?

Like, how do they kind of tap into what you're saying? If they're not in a place where they have the same level of faith that you do? For me, I will say that I believe in the intentionality of our existence. The whole world has been created

with this intention, the way that everything is working together, the solar system, the mosquitoes, like everything is playing a part. Like, I hate mosquitoes, but for some reason, they do serve this atmosphere.

I just don't believe that it got to humanity and there was no intention for humanity. And so that belief undergirds the way that I show up in the world,

that I am just as essential as the sun for my time here.

I am just as essential as the ocean for my time here. I believe that. And so from that space of intentionality, I am always seeking out, how do I make sure that I am in an optimal state

to be sensitive to the role that I can play in this moment? What I love about what you just said is that you are raising the stakes on yourself for why you are here. And so many of us are looking around for somebody else to go,

"Okay, I pick you. Okay, you're now the one. "Okay, I'm gonna give you permission." And when you look at yourself as being here for a reason and the reason is simply to spread light, simply to make the people around you, your community,

your family, yourself feel better to do good. Like that in and of itself gives your life meaning. And then when you add into it, okay, so let me work with the ingredients that I got. Let me do something with this.

“- That's why I said to make sure I'm in my optimal state,”

which means I've got to make sure that I am as well, as aware, as whole, as reconciled, as possible in order for me to be most effective. - And that's a constant reconciliation, like in and counting.

Like I gotta go back to the books. Hold on, you didn't got on my nerves today. Let me (laughs) I must need a nap. I need to go for reconciliation.

- I need a grasp to something I need. Like I become so, I hate myself when I'm tired. - She's not a good girl. She's not. - I want to throw in the cabinet, I'm not.

- She needs a nap. She needs like, and not just like, I need to go to sleep. Like I need you all to stop asking me for stuff. - Yeah.

- Like I can always tell when I'm overexerted,

when my family, my community, my team, are asking me for things that I said a precedent for, and I am annoyed. (laughs) - Why would an egg call you and tell you

to come and say to give me this talk? - Now let me tell you, when my egg you're out asking me what for dinner, I'm like, "Bee, you're set like, "When are you gonna grow up?"

When are you gonna, why are you asking me for dinner? What do I look like?

Because now you set this precedent,

and you don't want to live up to it anymore. And so maybe you do need to change the precedent, but you probably don't want to communicate it that way. So you need to take a minute, recollect the regroup, figure out what do you need,

what is still true for you right now, what is no longer true, and who needs to be aware of this, so that they can make space for who you are now.

“- You know what I'm gonna do when we're done talking?”

- Point. - And then I'm going to ask the team to take that particular segment, and text it to me, so that I can listen to it on repeat until I have taken my nap, and I can just change the precedent,

and stop being like angry, for sure. - For sure. - Because if you're right, it is everyone, I think what you just said is genius, because especially as women.

- Yeah. - Simon yet. - Simon yet, okay, I got it.

- No, no, I got it. - You never said okay.

- No, no problem. And then the thing that you said about your eight-year-old. - Yeah. - Like I'm like, who the hell do you say, you say, "Wow, bank, who do you think I am?"

And then I'll turn you like, "Oh wait a minute." - They think you are who you said you are. They think you are who you used to be. Like they have a reason to expect this from you. And maybe they can still expect it,

maybe you can take nap, maybe they can still expect it,

“but maybe you have to change the expectation.”

And this I feel is why we in the robbed of power and our world is that we set a precedent, we set an expectation, whether it's from our people pleasing, or whether it's from something that was authentic

for us years ago. And now I can no longer live up to that standard. And so I feel like I'm being held hostage in my life. - Yes, and I think you know that this is true. In any moment where you start resenting, for sure.

People that you care about you, or something that you used to love. - Yeah. - And this framework is so helpful,

because I always say it's like, okay, the process is broken,

or this has happened, but I realize that there are ways in which I've behaved in the past that just don't work. - They just don't work. - And I was laughing to myself when you were kind of talking

about how they keep moving the motor for adulthood. - Mm-hmm. - And I'm thinking about the fact that our youngest of three, just graduated from high school and everyone's like,

"Oh, how you feel about being an Epidester?" I'm like, you mean the birds leave in the nest? As far as I'm aware, they have like, like they fly back and forth. - The probbs are just more expensive.

- Yeah, yeah. - That's still here, so. - Yeah. - Nobody's leaving any. - Yeah.

(laughing) - Yes, but when I was growing up, it's like, oh my gosh, you turn 18 and you know what I mean, 18, 18, 18, but honey, we hit 18 and it's not giving what it was supposed to give.

- Yeah, yeah, we got to change the precedent. - Yeah, we do. - In terms of how we're gonna be in the next chapter. Oh, I got so much out of that, thank you. - My pleasure.

- Thank you. I wanna take a quick break. And while you're listening to our sponsors, I want you to take a minute and please share this with somebody that you love.

And don't go anywhere, because Sarah and I will be waiting for you after a short break. Stay with us. (upbeat music) Welcome back at your friend Mel Robbins and you and I

are here with the extraordinary Sarah Jake's Roberts. Sarah, I read that when this all started happening, you had to dare to believe in yourself. - Yeah. - Why is it a dare?

- Well, when you have spent more time doubting yourself than believing in yourself, it's not an easy transition. I cringe when I see people are like, just take the leap, take the jump.

It's hard. It is really, really hard because I've only known one way of being one way of seeing myself. And now you're telling me like, I'm this big babble person and I just need to step into it and run with it.

And like, I can't do it. It is a dare. It is not something that comes easily, but it is something that gradually picks up momentum. And so I try to challenge people like one,

like let's start, let's create this vision, like who is this person who you believe is within your reach to become you open the cupboard. You know what you're working with.

“Who is it that you believe you can become from here?”

And how do we begin to gradually introduce that person to your life? It is a dare. But you don't have to go from where you are right now to that person overnight.

It is an introduction for those who you're in intimate relationship with, it's the abilities that you know what, that precedent that I said, the way that I have been showing up. It doesn't necessarily feel honest anymore.

And I want you to know the most honest version of myself. And maybe things will change a little bit. You know, I'm married. I don't want to write a book that empower someone to be like, you know what, I'm going to change

and whether they can get with it or not, when it's someone who's exactly right.

you might want to keep that person around.

Maybe they haven't done that thing to you, but you still want to be authentic. You get to introduce who you are to that person, like actually I kind of want to go back to school or I want to start a business or I kind of think I might

be an artist. And so I bought a few things and I appreciate bringing you along on this journey with me. It is an introduction. And then you look up and you realize, wow,

I have transformed, but transformation is a process. And so I would say to take a little day or a baby there, recognizing that with each little day, we look up and we have been transformed. In the work that you're doing,

have you noticed that there's a particular dare or a particular change? You know what I mean? Even if it's just getting up earlier and creating some ritual to start your day

or if it's moving your body or if it's time for yourself, or like is there one thing that you could offer based on all of the work that you've done that you see, this really does help start the ball rolling toward the light.

“I think the one thing that we can do is to speak”

who we are seeking to become in our world and atmosphere and to give it language. When we give it language, whether it's two ourselves, but I think especially to other people that we begin to stretch our environment out

to make room for who we're going to become. So if I can give you a practical example, everyone who knows me knows like, I'm introverted, I like to be at home. I love to be at home.

It is my favorite thing to do. I want to see your home though. This might be-- I love it. You really want to see my blankets and pillows

because that's where I do my best work. Awesome. Because we're going to nap together. We're going to go out and sit back. So when I started speaking and touring and stuff,

someone sent me an invitation to do something globally. And someone turned it down on my behalf.

They're like, she's never going to do it.

She likes to be at home. And I had to own this fact that, like, yes, I do like being at home, but I am really intrigued by exploring what God's doing in my life. And I do not want to deflect opportunities

because I have allowed people to believe something about me that is no longer true. And so we laughed about that. Like, oh, I'm so glad you turned down here. You know, I love being at home.

I started going back to that person. I'm like, actually, I just want you to know that it would actually be a dream to travel the world and to be able to do what I do with other people. And so something like that comes up again.

I just want you to know that I'm open for it. I think that we have to create openings for who we are becoming. And sometimes that's with our language. Sometimes that's with us having communication with other people.

“But I think the most powerful thing you can do”

is to back it up. To start putting a down payment on who you are becoming by using your words, using your language, to create space for that person to be rooted in your life. It makes so much sense.

It's again, another tactical example of what it means to spread the light because you're now giving yourself not only permission, but you're giving voice to the scenes in the movie that you are now directing. Yeah, yeah, we're going to come.

Yeah, let it live outside of you. Let it live outside of you. I love that. Like, because we, we, we, oh my God. Yes.

Oh my God, let it live outside of you. If you let me talk, I'll get it out. Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God, yes. Let it live out because, oh, hey, you listened to the podcast. You read the books and it's all living inside of you.

You got the tools. You got the, you got the inspiration. You've got to let this live outside of you.

“Part of the reason that you have to let it live outside of you”

is that when it lives outside of you, it impues you out and makes room for more. But also it creates space outside of you for who you are becoming. That's it, edit everything else out. Let it live outside of you.

My God, I have to make sure that you got that. And I am going to break this down so that you understand the importance of this because this is everything. All of that stuff that you stuff down inside you, waiting for some day, waiting for permission,

waiting to feel ready, waiting to get rid of the shame, waiting for inspiration, waiting for motivation. You just heard Sarah tell you, you have to open your mouth and let it live outside of you. And when you do that, oh, my God,

you create space inside of you for new amazing things

to flow in. And you also create expansion in space for that thing that you want and who you're becoming to take up space. Yes.

You are a genius.

Yeah. It's so true. Yeah.

I hadn't thought about it in the context of space

because it is so painful to live your life with so many hopes and dreams for yourself and to know that there is a bigger possibility for your life. And when you trap it inside of you, it just, I know how awful that feels.

And it is so beautiful to think that just starting to say it out loud, daring to believe. That little active bravery opens up the space inside and creates expansion and room for you to grow into that. Yeah, I mean, it lets you exhale.

It just, 'cause you drown trying to keep all of that inside of you. It's hard to breathe, it's hard to believe, it's hard to show up in your world. But when you let it live outside of you, you get to exhale that.

“And I just want people to understand that nine times out of 10, right?”

It's not universal for nine times out of 10. There is more flexibility in your environment than you are aware of. Part of the reason why we can't let it live outside of us is that we think it's going to break our circles,

who's going to break our relationship, but because I gotta keep it all inside of me. I've had some people that I've lost along the way, but for the most part, people were excited to go on this journey with me.

Okay, you gone back to school? Okay, I'm excited for you. Okay, what are you going to study? Okay, well, I'm going to be praying for you. Let me know if you want me to quiz you.

You know, like, oh, I need to break. Okay, what can I do to help you with the kids? You know what I mean? I'm stepping in this at most people have more flexibility than we give them credit for.

But because we let things live inside of us,

we never get to experience the richness of the relationships

that are connected to us as well. And there is, there always is. Yeah. Wow, holy cow. You also talk about this idea of versions of you. Can you tell us a little bit about that?

“Well, I think we have to recognize that just like there's that version”

of yourself in the past that did something that makes you cringe, like you're no longer that person. Like the reason why you feel the way that you feel about what you went through in your past is because based off of what you know now, you would have made a different choice.

And so that's one version of you. And now you're in this version of you, but also there are other versions of you waiting to be unfolded. And you just could have never told me when I was writing that blog that I would also be good at communicating.

I don't consider myself a good public speaker. Still, I think I have a gift now. But it's not like for owning it. I do I think I have a gift, but it's not like, I don't feel it's natural or organic to me to just gravitate to speaking.

But it's obviously in me. So there are versions of you waiting to be revealed to you introduce to you and release into the world. And you just have to dare to not get caught up in an old version or this present version and recognize that the unfolding of that is not like this

deep hard work. It is owning fully where you are now. Letting those things that are inside of you live outside of you so that more expression can come to you. And I just look at my life.

And I feel like I've lived a thousand lives in, you know, my 35 years because I've just had all of these different versions. And there's a thousand more coming. I can't wait to meet her, but first we need a nap. Yes, we must rest, first that's how the unfolding happens.

“You know, I think when you hear the word power, right?”

Yeah, you tend to think of something that's unbreakable or in charge. What does power mean to you? Power is authenticity, resiliency, humility, combined. It is a combination. If there were like a nutritional fact that breaks down what power is,

it is 100% authenticity, 100% resiliency, and 100% humility. And I think many times we think powers just about that resiliency.

And I get back up and I don't get knocked down and that's what makes me powerful.

But humility is owning what we do wrong. It's learning our lessons. It's taking ownership of the way that our resiliency can have negative impacts on our friendships and family. Authenticity is recognizing that sometimes I am the beast that's on stage.

And I'm like tearing things up. And then there are other moments where I literally do need to go home. I need to be nurtured. I need to be cared for where I blend the family with six kids. I do a lot of nurturing. And that is authentic to me.

I need someone to take care of me and I have to use my words to be the strong friend. This cocktail of authenticity, humility, and resiliency is a flow of power. Power is not a destination. It is a flow in which all three of those things have come together for the confluence of who you are. And that confluence will take you anywhere.

It works anywhere you place it. I just got this image because, you know, when you see the word power or you think about it, you tend to think about authority, right? But the way you described it, I actually started to think about it as energy.

Yeah. That it is all these things flowing through you. So it's what's fueling the way that you show up. Yeah. So the book is called power moves.

And many times people hear, first of all,

it's power moves in nature, confidence, and become a force.

“There's not a more intimidating title anywhere, right?”

And now it's checking out. Right. And you know the bed. And I think my greatest, like, you know, less than and sharing the message of the book, is like power is not a doing.

It is a being. And power moves is not like, how do I make a power moves? It is a realization that power is fluid, that power moves. And from that place of flowing in power, from that place of being powerful and allowing power to flow through you,

sure you do some, you do some things.

But what's most important is the being, the powerful being that you are.

All right, freaking love. I love thinking about how you can, no matter where you are in your life, begin to allow this power to move through you. Yeah. Since you have confidence as a subtitle in the book,

what is what is confidence mean to you?

“And how does somebody who does not feel confident happen to it?”

And Esther Porel has the definition of confidence that I love the most. And I'm going to paraphrase it because I can never do her words just as, but basically, it's like having knowledge of both your gifts and strengths and also your flaws and not being moved in either direction. Confidence is the intentional owning of your existence and identity

and the acceptance of it, the contentment of all of who you are and not allowing it to be easily moved or swayed by a success nor failure. And having the courage to be okay with that, like to not just okay, like I settled for okay, but like to really embrace that.

And I think a lot of times confidence comes down to okay, well, I need a haircut or I need, you know, what does the makeup look like? I need like I, I was preaching one time a week, started sleeping, I took my wig off, which is where they've done the whole

“other podcast about, but people are like, oh my gosh, how did you do that?”

I'm like, I mean, the hair is nice, but it's not who I am, like it doesn't define me. I don't wish that it happened, but I'm not going to be afraid to be up here with a week cap one because like most people know this isn't my hair anyway. It's long one day, it's short the next week. I am so okay with who I am that I can step into any moment, no matter how, you know, humiliating it may feel on the surface and say,

you know what, this is my truth and I got to step into it, confidence is not about how I look, confidence is about who I am on the inside and being able to hold on to that.

Amazing. And what I got as you were telling the wig story is that power was

moving through you. Yeah. So you took the authenticity, the resilience and the humility. Yeah. And you just let that flow through you. For sure. First of all, I had to say what happened. Oh, child. Okay. I got to know now. Listen, okay. I'll tell you my most embarrassing story about a stage yet and then you tell me you're, well, I've got two kind of stuff. So first of all,

I'm going to have a lesson in weeks, right? Okay. So not my hair, right? So I'm not, it's not a touch to anything, right? And so when it's all like this, it's fine, right? But when you start to do impony tales, there's just starting level of anchoring that you want to have. You want to sew it into some braids. You want to glue it down real good. And she had sewed it on, but she didn't sew deep enough into the braids. It was just sewed onto the wig cap. So the weight of

the ponytail, hold the wig cap. Oh, and girl. You know, I don't sit through an hour and a half a hair and make it for my wig to come off. So you know, I'm sitting there and someone's like, you know, I, with this black church, right? So we're talking to one another, they're clapping, like, you know, I've gone to some spaces. It's pretty quiet. People are just receiving, you know, we're having a conversation. It's not uncommon for people who like waving their hands up in the air,

I've never seen that before, but get a girl. And then I went through the other side and someone else

“was like, oh, I was like, is my wig? Because I'm sweating. I'm hot. You know, in the glue in the”

weed. And so it starts when I said, listen, I knew I did math real fast. I'm like the weight of this ponytail, like I could yank it, but it's going to fall back again because it's not security. Yeah. Yeah. And so I was in the middle of my message. I'm not going to stop preaching to go run off stage because my wig is falling off. And so I took it off. And then I'm sitting there with the wig cap, and I'm like, this is actually happening. On any given Sunday, there's like 50,000 people streaming

online. And my father wasn't there. My husband was out of town. And now I'm sitting on stage

at this traditional church where I was pregnant as a teenager. Now I'm like, this is grown up

who's like, overcome with a weak cap for him. I take the wig off. I throw it to my sister and I go back to preaching. And I really was just prepared to be like the laughing stock of the internet. People got some jokes before the most part women were like, I felt so much liberation when you did that. It felt like you couldn't just show up in any given moment with the truth of who you are, and it'll be okay. Like, I felt confident. I felt like, I don't know if it helped a lot of people.

Like, I spent weeks studying for this message and me taking my wig off was like the most powerful moment of the whole sermon because it gave people permission to be authentic, whatever that authenticity looked like in the sand flatfooted in it. So yeah, I took it off. Well, the message is

always bigger than the mess always. And it taught me a valuable lesson. On the back end,

we had just recently relocated to Dallas, my husband and I, we were living in Los Angeles. And while we were in LA, my husband has this incredible community. It's a vibe brand. It's the kind of place where a girl who got pregnant 13 out of baby, 14 can go and be like, girl, please, we got you. We love you. Show us what you know about God. And that's where I got a lot of my confidence as a speaker and as someone who preaches. And so when we went back to Dallas to kind of help my father and

leadership, I'm like, I don't know if who I was there works here. Right. So now I'm questioning this power move that same power that exists here will flow into where I am now. And so internally, I'm dealing with these insecurities, this uncertainty that Sunday when I took my wig off, it really was a message for me from God that like the most authentic version of who you are has been anointed to help from Dallas, from this church, from this platform. If you will just be who you are,

I will take care of the rest. And this moment that would have been something that most people laugh at became this thing that helps so many people feel comfortable in their own skin to own who they were. I was, I looked at there was this lady she had thrown her wig off and it was all said,

“I'm like, my mom was living. That's why it's like mine. I want yours. But she's like solidarity,”

tired of pretending, tired of pretending to have it all together. It's like this moment or people like, this is who I am accepted. And so it really was a blessing in disguise. It really was. It was a direct message to you for sure. There are no accidents. He can text me next time. Yeah. Well, and you know, on the theme of power. Yeah. Why would you even question? Of course power moves because if you try to block a power surge, it will blow everything up in its way. Okay, the mean you, we could

tell for a long time. Because when we are doing something new, no matter how much we have mastered in the past, there is an opportunity for insecurity, doubt, and failure taken vences that we are not equipped to step into something new. And I wrote this book coming off the heels of that moment, because if we can really grasp this concept that power is fluid, then the power that we experienced in whatever stage of our life that has passed, it flows into where we are now. It may have a

different expression. It may be in a different city. You may have been divorced. And now you're married again. You may have been hands on with the kids. And now you're learning who you are. Now that you no longer have children, and it can feel you can feel fragile in the process, but power flows. And so to be able to ask our selves, I know a power looked like then, but what this power looked like from now is one of the greatest questions we can ask our selves,

because it honors the fact that there is power in this moment. I just have to figure out how to tap into and into flow with what power looks like now. I got to tell you something. I feel I have to

“tell you, please. Okay. I think you know this, and I feel permission to say this to you this bluntly,”

because you are a woman of deep faith, who has a direct connection to God. But when you talked

sentence in my head. That was meant to happen for you to disrupt that culture. And for you to

be the embodiment of a entirely different definition of a godly woman.

“Thank you. That's it. I think we needed another definition. You had to have thought that before. No,”

no. Well, because you continue to do it is everything unfolds. Like you continue to open the door for your entire community to envision what it means to be a woman and an entirely different way. And it's not about one version. Yeah. It's about the freedom and the power that

flows through you when you just are you that you're not defined by what you do. You're not defined

by the mistakes that you made. You're certainly not defined by whether or not you have your virginity. You're not that you can literally be who you want to be beyond gender beyond the wig, beyond any mistakes that you've made. And you are the embodiment of that as somebody that's just meeting you and that has watched your life from afar and is inspired by your work. Like there's no doubt in my mind that that is a thousand percent the work that is getting done through your life. You're not a

aware of it, but it's very clear in the context of your entire life story and your mission and the work that you have just been called to put out into the world that that is actually what's happening. It makes so much make sense to me. It does it makes so much make sense to me because I just there's no other explanation. When you think about how much faith you have and you talk about being the embodiment of something and the intentionality of something like let's just stay with

the word intentionality. Like what if you did believe because I know you and I both believe this but even those things that were so cringey in the moment we know when we get to the end of the movie and we look back at the entire thing that happened everything had an order to it. Wow.

“And I think one of the most incredible skills in life that you have that I know that I have that I”

am trying to help other people have is the ability to both stand in this moment in this frame of your movie and look back and say oh of course all of those things led here and of course I would

never be here holding the hand of the little me saying take this all in look at how far we've come

without that thing that I once hated and now I have created room to love and be compassionate for but I can also stand in this frame and look ahead and know that this is leading somewhere extraordinary and that is what I felt compelled to tell you. The idea of we needed another version of what it means to be a woman of God in a culture where there's literally one road, one path, and for the undeniable grace. Like there's just no reason for the swell of the info. Like there's

“no reason and I think I've like actually there is a reason. Well there is yeah I know that's what I'm”

saying like I think the intentionality of God to in the midst of while one thing is rampant to be like you know what I am going to allow this to happen it's not going to make sense to anyone but in 20 years it's going to make sense because I'm going to use all of these things to create this version of Sarah that is relatable and touchable for a generation that's been lost and you can't actually be relatable and untouchable without that. Yeah and the other piece of this that really struck me

is the word undeniable and when you said there's only one path that's actually not true. We've just put right infinite other paths in a cupboard and that is why I love doing what I do and I love what one many of all this because there are all of these women with all of these different paths that have been stuffed in a cupboard and now they're beginning to believe that like maybe there's another

Africa like maybe we all have a unique path and I don't have to try and fit myself into

“this one way being or this qualified myself because I don't fit in this like that is what makes”

one many of all what it is. And you know I see that because you just also said there's just no other explanation and I often think about that in my own story facing bankruptcy struggling with anxiety I have some dumb idea when I am drunk on bourbon to launch myself out of bed like a rocket so I can

move fast enough to beat the anxiety and the series of unexplainable events and coincidences

and there's no other explanation than this divine order. Yeah and so I am so proud of myself for saying it to you and actually letting it live outside of me so that it could create space for you. If the person listening takes just one thing from the extraordinary amount of wisdom

“that you have poured into us today and they focus on one action what do you want them to do?”

I would say to open that cabinet open that cabinet look at every single ingredient of you and to trust that every ingredient is going to be used in the full edit of your story and for those of you who know a little bit about cooking you know that there are some ingredients that we buy

thinking that we're going to use them and then it gives the steep because we've never actually used it

there are probably some things that you have allowed to get dusty some dreams some gifts some

“memories that you like that they have dust on them because it makes it harder for you to see them”

and I would tell you to dust those ingredients off to put a mat on the counter and start drinking what are your parting words secure your week. I love you, I love you, and thank you for being with Sarah Jake's Roberts and me today I wanted to be sure to tell you in case no one else does that I love you and I know Sarah loves you too for so many and we believe in you and open up the cabinet and go cook up a frickin five star meal and I'll talk to you in a few days

there was a lot in that and now that I tried to write the book I was like this is this feels worthy of unpacking I don't writing 60 thousand words is you know it's oh you don't I'm in the middle of writing my next book I did a nap I'm green for you because it's not like you just write this down double down on the frame I don't think you're praying hard no I would get on a plane for you I will feed you as long as I get a blanket in a nap girl I will give you the best blanket you've ever had it'll be

down I'd have feathers any you don't get feathers out of your mouth oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh and one more thing and no this is not a blooper this is the legal language you know what the lawyers write and what I need to read to you this podcast is presented solely for educational and entertainment purposes I'm just your friend I am not a licensed therapist and this podcast is not intended as a substitute for the advice of a physician professional coach psychotherapist or other qualified professional got it good I'll see in the next episode

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